Don't Feed the Bear

And once again, you are on your own. Wandering around the walk of life where it is not enough to be right, and corroborating ideas that are already proven correct is no longer trending. A new era has come, and it has brought new challenges with it: coming up with things that no one else has realized yet.

Predictions are not enough either, others will predict the same thing and everybody will fall in the same place. The only feasible solution seems to be "to have a bad idea". And still, it seems impossible to get rid of that dirty inner voice whispering that "all you need is to be right. It's not essential that everyone else be wrong."

What is Survival?

Survival is a fight towards inequality being an attempt to move something away from the median of the distribution. Economists, for instance, have reached a pretty strong consensus that innovation is the root cause of long-term economic growth; as if we all could shape the future by innovating.

Any decision would then encompass a large fraction of the value-add to a society. And you know what? There are moral fashions too, and violating them can get you fired, marginalized, ostracized... We consider that opinions are harmless thoughts spoken out loud, but they can get you in trouble more often than not. Do you remember Galileo in the 17th century? Imagine thinking that we have adopted things that people will find ridiculous in the future!

"Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers? No...? Well, if everything you believe is something you're supposed to believe, could that possibly be a coincidence? Odds are it isn't. Odds are you just think what you're told.” - Paul Graham.

Conventional and Open-minded People

Truth is there is little room for innovation in most academic endeavors; whereas practicality calls for the sharp distinction and revival of open-mindedness and independent thought processes. Just like discipline and intellectual curiosity, I am no longer aware whether this notion has more to do with nature than nurture, but conventional-minded people don't like to think of themselves as conventional-minded either.

Anyhow, it is just a coincidence that their ideas are identical to other peers who were just unaware of its existence. If anyone can change, then anyone can turn him/herself into an open-minded person who embraces the beauty of open cultural interactions and societal adaptation.

Those who don't might simply be stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like schools, they just haven’t had a chance to understand the confidence boost of fighting against the conventional forces.

Conventional-minded people greatly outnumber independent-minded ones... but it is not a numbers game, and luckily you don't have to spend all your time with independent-minded people.

Once a passion project stops feeling like a passion object, one should reevaluate whether it is time to put the brakes on. That does not necessarily mean giving up on a project's idea, but perhaps it means that the genuine energy and integrity of the underlying work are worth reconsidering after taking a step back and looking at the overall picture.

You can't say those things that can put you in trouble, right? Start looking for things that you can't say are true. You will not get in trouble for saying that 2+2=5, but you might make some people mad with statements that they worry might be believed.

It is bittersweet, but if it is truly a passion project, the founder's dilemma should contemplate the mental and emotional burden of forcing a team to bring an idea to fruition. Unfortunately, it is not until you get closer to the destination that you start to realize that the finish line is getting more blurry.

Sometimes you feel like you need one final push, but that might be the final indicator that, if the development work has not grown in an organic way, the end of the project might be closer than you are, making the rest of the team think.

Everything in crypto seems to come down to the 'velocity of money' thesis, but eventually, setting boundaries is critical for a balance between mental and physical health. No matter how hard you try to apologize for disappointing those who have already set their expectations, you can't do anything other than hope for the best.

At this point, would you trust someone who has never made a mistake? How should we assess the performance and attitudes of someone who has never made any mistake? Is that even feasible? Possible?

The team celebrates and grinds, and the founder takes the lead. The researchers, analysts, and investors no longer know what place they fit in. Just a culture around Crypto Twitter that is worth a lot more than a full-time job, and where the only way to escape seems to be by setting alarms.

As we avoid feeding the bear, luxury seems indulgent and spending money scares the hell out of the man who went from poor to rich and now wonders how drastic changes would have to be to leap in reverse.

An investment as protection against money expenditure seems tricky, but remember the realization that money and time are inseparable entities that go in tandem as you move forward in life.

Closing Words

As Paul Graham mentions in his "How to Lose Time and Money" essay, " The most dangerous way to lose time is not to spend it having fun, but to spend it doing fake work.". Indeed, when you spend time having fun you know you are being self-indulgent, and just thinking about it makes you feel like you have been wasting your time; as if sitting at a desk was solid work.

The fallacy of "if it is not fun, then it must be work" never gets old. Again, quoting Paul Graham, "With time, as with money, avoiding pleasure is no longer enough to protect you."

Photo by Olen Gandy on Unsplash